Sciencespeaking topic
We remember the past but not the future. While most laws of physics don't care whether time runs forward or backward, why do we always experience time in one direction? Where does the arrow of time really come from?
— arrow of time / entropy
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- A river always flows along the path of least resistance and over the years winds into almost the same 'S' pattern; no one designs it, yet the shape keeps repeating. Why does nature rediscover the same forms again and again?
- When a forest burns, the seeds of some tree species only open then; destruction is their moment of birth. When 'disaster' and 'renewal' are this tangled together in nature, what is bad and what is good?
- When you drift off into empty daydreaming, your brain isn't resting; on the contrary a network called the 'default mode' kicks in and builds the past, the future, other people. So the moments you think you're doing nothing are the moments your brain is writing the most scenarios. Why does your mind never fall silent?
- A city never really dies; wars, plagues, and crises strike it but it recovers. Yet most giant companies die within a few decades. Both are built from people, so why is one nearly immortal and the other so mortal?
- False positives and false negatives: a test either calls something present that isn't there or misses something that is. Which error is less bad to accept, and is that a scientific choice or a moral one?